Health and Social Care - Independent

Independent Health and Social Care today

The independent health and social care sector is facing major structural change and consolidation of providers, due to the fall in demand for private medical insurance, self-pay and changing nature of NHS sub-contracting.

At the same time, independent health providers are looking to form closer links with the NHS, in particular their diagnostics capability, to develop joint ventures that deliver new models of care.

Across all healthcare, independent healthcare providers are under increasing scrutiny on the quality of patient and service user care by the Care Quality Commission with the new inspection regimes.

What we do

DAC Beachcroft is a leading international legal business (and one of the largest law firms in the United Kingdom) with over 60 years’ experience working in healthcare.

We are regarded as market leaders in the provision of corporate, commercial and regulatory legal advice to healthcare providers. Our national team of expert lawyers already provide over 50% of independent health and social care providers with innovative, practical advice to help grow their business and deliver high quality patient and service user care.

What we are known for

A wealth of health foresight

We’re forever anticipating, translating and articulating the consequences of legal and regulatory change for healthcare clients.

Intelligent. Imaginative. Inspired.

We’re a pioneering practitioner of healthcare law. Our team of expert partners, lawyers and specialists are able to apply years and years of insight and intelligence to craft imaginative solutions to resolve clients’ healthcare challenges today – and beyond.

Refreshingly articulate advice

What’s best for our clients is what matters most. We’re fearless in standing up for our clients and their ambitions, but are refreshingly clear with our advice for clients too.

Count on us to be there

We always aim for client management that’s so seamlessly fluent that our clients find it hard to tell where their team ends and DAC Beachcroft’s begins.

Our experience

We have experience in assisting independent health clients on a wide range of work, whether mergers, acquisitions, flotations and subsequent due diligence or joint ventures with other public sector bodies, including Spire Healthcare, Ramsey Healthcare, Partnerships in Care, SimplyHealth, Eight Roads Healthcare (Fidelity), HCA International and Octopus Healthcare.

We have helped a number of clients build and/or fund a number of care facilities, including Red & Yellow Care, Shore Capital and Octopus Healthcare.

Our national employment team work with a wide range of healthcare providers offering expert guidance on all aspects of employment law, from day-to-day employment issues to highly specialist areas of health employment law, often having a significant regulatory, reputational or service impact.

Our medical malpractice teams operate across the UK, Ireland and Spain and have a broad and deep understanding of medical malpractice alongside years of experience. Our wide range of experience includes handling the highest value, complex and sensitive matters, through to large volume, smaller cases. Our clients are drawn from insurers, brokers, adjusters, MDO’s as well as state defence organisations and insurers, in the UK and further afield.

Our regulatory advice ranges from issues such as emergency applications to the Court of Protection, CQC compliance, mental health and service redesign through to regulatory due diligence within M&A and defending Corporate Manslaughter prosecutions.

We provide strategic regulatory advice at Board level, providing wise counsel to the leaders of health and social care commissioners and providers, often at the most challenging of times. We are uniquely placed to consider the interface between independent health providers and the NHS, regulators and commissioners and subsequent public perception and reputational risk.